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Opinion: Editorials

Editorial: Snapshots from the nation's press

Posted:
11/29/2015 07:30:30 PM MST

Too many drug ads

Watching television these days means sitting through ads for drugs to ease pain, induce sleep, overcome sexual dysfunction, alleviate depression, ease urinary tract symptoms and more. Some patients say the ads are helpful, but many doctors warn that they are often misleading.

The American Medical Association's House of Delegates voted this month in favor of a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices. Its officers argued that such advertising "inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate."Only two nations in the world, the United States and New Zealand, allow consumer drug ads.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation published in late October found that a whopping 89 percent of the public favors requiring the Food and Drug Administration to review prescription-drug ads for accuracy before they are broadcast. The F.D.A. currently does little to crack down on them, possibly fearing it would violate court rulings protecting commercial free-speech rights. It has never imposed civil fines on a company for a misleading ad or promotion.

Decades ago, most drug ads appeared in medical journals, on the assumption that only medical professionals could weigh the risks, benefits and appropriate uses. In 1962, a law was passed that barred the F.D.A. from requiring prior approval for the content of drug ads. The agency concluded, after various court decisions, that it was also limited in its ability to crack down on ads already on the market. By the mid-1990s, ads geared to consumers were on the rise.

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Meanwhile, consumers need to be deeply skeptical of what they hear and read from drug companies.

—New York Times

Birth control over the counter

Women in Oregon and California soon will be able to purchase birth-control pills directly from their pharmacist without first having to visit a doctor. These simple measures could herald a breakthrough moment not only for women's reproductive rights but also for reductions in routine health care costs that put particular financial burdens on the poor.

Congress is watching closely for potential application nationwide. Conservative opposition has been muted so far. Some Democrats have expressed concern about the potential costs if these measures lead to reduced health insurance coverage.

The sponsor of Oregon's legislation is GOP state Rep. Knute Buehler, a physician who sees pharmacist-prescribed birth control as key to alleviating poverty while reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Millions of American women have relied on the pill for decades as their principal form of birth control. The Vatican objects, but even many Catholic women take the pill.

Does it really make sense to force millions of women to continue undergoing expensive doctor's visits for something as widely used and routinely dispensed as the pill? U.S. and World Health Organization guidelines say such exams are medically unnecessary. Yet a 2010 medical survey found that 33 to 44 percent of doctors still required pelvic exams before they would write a pill prescription.

The cost of doctor's visits could be a major culprit behind the high correlation between poverty and unintended pregnancies. Each year, 6.6 million American women get pregnant, with about half of those unintended. The closer women are to the poverty level, the higher their rate of unintended pregnancies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Measures such as those in Oregon and California making access to contraception easier appear to have the best prospects of lowering the unintended and unwanted pregnancy rate.

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